(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lens system using inhomogeneous material, especially a graded refractive index (GRIN) single lens system used as an objective lens system for optical video disks, etc.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Recently there have developed apparatuses which read, by the converging of a laser beam to a microspot, the information which is recorded with high density on recording medium such as optical video disks, digital audio disks, etc.
In such apparatuses, it is necessary for an objective lens system used for the recording and the reproducing of information to be compact and light because the objective lens system is driven directly for the purpose of autofocusing and auto-tracking. It is also necessary for the objective lens system to have a large N.A. in order to obtain a smaller spot size of a laser beam which is converged on a recording medium.
As such an objective lens system, a combination of a plurality of homogeneous spherical lenses or a single homogeneous aspherical lens, especially for the purposes of being compact and light, has hitherto been in use.
Moreover, besides these homogeneous lenses, a GRIN single lens system using inhomogeneous material for economy of manufacture, compactness, and light weight has been known recently.
In the early GRIN lens system, only the correction of spherical aberration was considered.
As is well known, it is necessary for an objective lens system used for optical video disks, etc. to have aberrations well-corrected in the range of diameters of 0.1-0.2 mm on the disk surface and, therefore, not ony spherical aberration but also coma should be well-corrected.
A GRIN single lens system disclosed, for example, in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 6354/80 has at least one of the refracting surfaces thereof formed as a spherical surface. In this lens system, spherical aberration is well-corrected, but the correction of other aberrations is not sufficient.
GRIN single lens systems intended to correct off-axial aberrations, especially coma are disclosed in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application Nos. 122512/83 and 62815/84. In these lens systems, the refracting surface of the GRIN lens is formed as spherical one, and the radius of curvature of this spherical surface and the higher-order coefficients of the refractive index distibution are arranged ranged so that both spherical aberration and coma can be corrected. However, in the former lens system (Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 6354/80), it cannot be said that the correction of aberrations thereof is sufficient. The latter lens systems (Japanene Published Unexamined Patent Application Nos. 122512/83 and 62815/84) have defects in that, for example, the shapes of these lenses have such strongly meniscus shapes that the manufacture thereof is difficult.